Managing Agile Projects [Paperback]

Sanjiv Augustine (Author)

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Product Details

Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (May 22 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0131240714
ISBN-13: 978-0131240711
Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 17.8 x 1.6 cm
Shipping Weight: 499 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #429,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #26 in Books > Computers & Internet > Project Management > Agile

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Product Description

Book Description

The popularity of agile development methodologies continues to increase, as developers and technical managers have seen the benefits of incorporating flexibility in development projects. However, agility advocates still struggle to gain business management support for their initiatives. The reluctance of business management to truly embrace agility stems from a disconnect between the assumptions and techniques of traditional management and those of the new agile development methodologies. The purpose of this book is to provide management a framework with supporting evidence that directly addresses this need. While conventional wisdom states that agile methods are not scaleable, the author shares proof that it can be applied to large-scale development projects. Furthermore, he aligns the adoption of agile methods to cutting-edge business management practices. The end result is a practical book that will help organizations overcome their institutional reluctance and reap the significant benefit of agile methods.

From the Inside Flap

Preface

When first placed in the position of leading an agile team nearly five years ago, I had precious little guidance to assist me in my job. This is the book that I wish I had then—I have endeavored to capture my subsequent experience and learning and present them in a form that is accessible to managers new to agile methodologies. Other managers more familiar with the agile landscape should enjoy it as well, albeit with the sense of the familiar. In the agile spirit of continuous learning and experimentation, I have drawn on many diverse disciplines to augment and to extend agile methodologies on my projects, including complexity theory, organizational learning, and Lean Thinking.

Although there certainly are insights within that will benefit all those who are associated with agile project teams, this is primarily a book for agile managers—those individuals who have been gifted with, or are aspiring to, the privilege and responsibility of leading agile project teams. Some of you might inquire as to how this book differs from others on the agile market. I believe that Managing Agile Projects is different in these respects:

It presents a holistic, systems view of project teams and the organizations that house them, especially their organizational learning aspects. It squarely addresses the role of the project manager on agile projects and presents practical ways to lead them.
It acknowledges the necessary balance between management and leadership, and provides insights around leadership not found in other project management material.

Although it draws primarily from XP, it incorporates several principles and practices from Scrum, Crystal, and Feature-Driven Development. It is wholly an "in-the-trenches" practitioner's view of the world of a project manager on agile projects.

I have a passion for project management, and I have discovered that it is due in large part to the deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, fun, and ever-fresh learning that comes with working with a peer group of skilled individuals in delivering things of great value on agile teams. I trust that reading this book will help create some of those same experiences for you.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 4.6 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Inconsistent, imprecise, and too much of a CCPace advertisement, Aug 14 2005

By Lars Bergstrom "LarsBerg" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Managing Agile Projects (Paperback)

I admired the goal of this book - to introduce the ideas of agile project management and to bridge the gap between the tomes describing methodologies and the concrete role that managers and leaders play on agile teams. A book that did that well would indeed be a worthy first gift to a new manager. Unfortunately, this isn't that book.

The inconsistent messages made it difficult to pull out concrete recommendations. For example, one of the key activities identified for a manager is to "monitor and adapt" to the team and corporate cultures. Later, though, he talks about entering situations sight-unseen with the goal to institute and enforce all of the rules of XP on a subject organization to the letter.

Lack of detail hurt the sections on catering a process to an organization. He goes into some detail on how to characterize the current culture and profile of the environment you're about to work in, but then just shows two extremes and potential "process cocktails" that might work for them. I would've loved to see, in addition, a list of the practices that you might try to roll out, and the specific elements of an organization's profile that make them more or less applicable so that a manager can come up with their own or at least know what negative experiences to expect.

Finally, the consulting company he works for comes across as some sort of omniscient savior. Either he's been extremely lucky or things are being sugar-coated. As he points out, agile projects are "chaordic" - right on the border between chaos and order. Real boats rock, and many of the best lessons in practical application come from the experiences of overcorrection or failing to act. I'd argue any significant project attempting to roll out agile methods will have some of those bumps along the way, and anyone who claims otherwise is trying to sell you something.

I did enjoy the section on creating an conveying the project vision - he's quite correct that in a situation where you're relying a lot on the team to self-organize, communicating and reinforcing that vision and the team's goals are probably the top success factor for the project.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, weak opening sections, Sep 3 2006

By James Holmes "Co-Author 'Windows Developer Po... - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Managing Agile Projects (Paperback)

This is a solid book, but suffers from a very slow start. The first quarter of the book seems filled with too much mystical hand waving and too many buzzwords. The entire opening quarter of the book is stuffed with referenecs to "chordic edges" and "holographic formal structures." A few of the buzzwords get defined and used later on, but the overabundance of them was like fingers on a chalkboard. There are also a few irritants such as charts with poor explanations, or the assertion that test-driven development is an approach "specific to XP."

Things pick up greatly after chapter 3, however. The remainder of the book is solid, very useful, and full of great information for building and maintaining a solid development team. There's a lot of great focus on bringing value to the customer, and there are practical examples for all of the various aspects of running an agile project.

You'll find handy tables and explanations detailing estimation, task backlogs and job jars, and several great discussions on how to keep communication flowing with your customer. The sections on clearly establishing service criteria at the start of the project, and the clever use of sliders to help define success critieria, were nicely done.

Overall it's a very good book. The opening three or four chapters drag down what's otherwise a solid addition to my bookshelf. I'll get a good amount of use out of the book.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical yet thought-provoking, Sep 23 2005

By Michael Cohn "agile developer" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Managing Agile Projects (Paperback)

This is a very practical yet thought-provoking book. The book brings in a lot of thinking from complex adaptive systems to bear on the problem of managing agile projects. A lot of early agile thinking was that the role of the manager was to buy pizza and get out of the way. This book shows how the role of the agile project manager goes well beyond that and provides very specific activities to be performed by agile project managers.

The book covers topics (such as how to best organize an agile team or teams) that are glossed over elsewhere. Particularly useful may be the chapter on how to transition to an agile process. Among the specific principles and activities recommended in this book are certainly some that will immediately help your current project.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 19 reviews 4.6 out of 5 stars